1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to network routers. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to offloading control information from routers, performing external processing, and centrally administering routing policy.
2. Background Information
As the Internet continues its rapid expansion, faster processors within routers are needed. It would be desirable to offload complicated route policy and route calculation to an alternate network element. Currently there is no method to “relay” border gateway protocol (BGP) information to a central policy server for further best-path calculation processing. Today, operators would have to make static configurations to force a peer network to establish BGP peering with a central policy server.
In order to capture all data on a BGP session, an operator would need to either deploy passive or in-line “sniffers” to capture data on the wire. With some routers involved in edge/border operations (the demarcation between autonomous systems or networks), a router may have anywhere from several to a hundred BGP sessions. With numerous BGP peers, it is difficult to deploy data analysis devices for each peer.
Another method for operators to capture BGP data would be to enable a debug/trace mode on the router, where detailed logging could be captured. While this can provide valuable information, the simple enabling of such a capability may have a negative impact, as additional processing is required. Also, any debug mode would result in creation of additional logs that may need to be stored locally or transferred across the network. Debug/trace logs are usually clear-text and provide much more information than an operator typically requires.
Another problem with current monitoring systems is that they only receive from their border routers the “best routes”, specifically, routes that the router has chosen to be inserted into the routing information base (RIB). These routes are the routes to which the router decides to forward traffic. This does not give a clear view to an operator of all available paths.
Currently, network operators are dependent on long route-maps/route-policy statements that have dependencies to other parts of the router configuration (e.g., community lists). Traditionally, very customized and flexible route-maps can be several pages long. This can make troubleshooting difficult for operators.
Accordingly, there is a need for a (BGP) routing policy manager, relay and monitor.